


Recurring Robins

by juniron



Series: Whumptober 2020 [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Batfamily (DCU), Blood and Injury, Brotherly Love, Canonical Character Death, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dick Grayson Whump, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Domestic Fluff, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhaustion, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mentioned Alfred Pennyworth, Mentioned Bruce Wayne, Mentioned Jason Todd, Nightmares, Protective Dick Grayson, Set Between Young Justice Season 1 and Season 2, Tim Drake is Robin, Whump, Whumptober 2020, and Jason is #6feetunder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27398329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniron/pseuds/juniron
Summary: He’d never wanted this, and now a kid was dead. He’d made mistakes, been immature and bitter, and that had cost Jason his future.So when, despite all objections and apprehension, yet another raven-haired boy, bright-eyed and eager to please, was taking up his old name and costume, Dick knew he had to protect him. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes again.Tim Drake was his name, and Dick couldn’t lose him. He wouldn’t lose another brother. It had taken him too long to realize that, and Jason had paid the price.ORDick has intense recurring nightmares and is determined to prevent Tim from sharing the same fate as Jason.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson
Series: Whumptober 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950706
Comments: 3
Kudos: 58
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Recurring Robins

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's November, but I started writing this in October and then life got hectic and I had no time to write. I like the Whumptober prompts so I'll probably keep writing them, even though it's totally not October anymore.
> 
> Set around one year before season two; Dick is seventeen and Tim is thirteen.

Dick didn’t want to be Batman.

Dick didn’t want to be Robin.

Dick didn’t want to be replaced, either.

The selfish part of him wanted the mantle to be his own, unclaimed by anyone else. He’d left Robin behind to find himself, separate from Bruce and his baggage, and had come out the other end a changed young man. Nightwing.

Robin was meant to be his. Not just his name, but his burden. A burden buried in the past so nobody would have to bear it again. Jason wasn’t ever supposed to be a part of this mess. Yet somehow, this rough-around-the-edges street rat had become the new Robin. Bruce had justified it as lifting him out of the gutter, giving him an opportunity, a chance to be more. 

Mentoring another hurting, desperate child into a crime-fighting vigilante… where could they have possibly gone wrong?

Dick had held a sense of bitter resentment for Jason at first, but he wasn’t sure if it was just residual ire he’d redirected from Bruce. An internal conflict had lived in his gut ever since. Never truly accepting a boy he should’ve seen as a brother; someone to watch over, care for, love, and protect. The battle in his heart grew once Jason had officially become a member of the Team. He wishes he could’ve done more to protect him.

Dick often had to wonder to himself. He couldn’t even imagine his life without being Robin. What would’ve become of him if Bruce hadn’t taken him in? He’d surely be a broken, battered man full of regret and sorrow. But who was to say that he didn’t gain the same things from his life as a hero?

What would’ve happened to Jason if he’d never been Robin? If he’d chosen to steal tires from a different car a few alleyways away, would he have taken up the cape and mask? Learned to solve his problems with fists and brutality? Would he have returned to his deadbeat family to grow into a life of crime? Would he have grown up at all? Would he still be alive?

Dick liked to think that without becoming Robin, Jason would still be alive. It made it so much simpler to place blame. So much easier to hate.

Immediately following the boy’s death, Dick had childishly placed all the blame on Bruce and his _mission._ But time and maturity had ebbed away at that sentiment, slowly breaking down and replacing those cracks in the dam of blame with his own faults and shortcomings.

Not a day went by that a dark part of Dick’s mind didn’t stab a shrapnel of doubt into his heart about everything he held dear, his failures, and his future. Jason’s ghost seemed to haunt him inside and out.

He’d never wanted this, and now a kid was dead. He’d made mistakes, been immature and bitter, and that had cost Jason his future.

So when, despite all objections and apprehension, yet another raven-haired boy, bright-eyed and eager to please, was taking up his old name and costume, Dick knew he had to protect him. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes again.

Tim Drake was his name, and Dick couldn’t lose him. He wouldn’t lose another brother. It had taken him too long to realize that, and Jason had paid the price.

——-

Dick’s eyes were weighed down by the pull of exhaustion; that exhaustion, more specifically put, being the amalgamation of thirty-four hour straight of nothing but vigilante detective work. A begrudging alliance with Batman kept him at the manor as he and Bruce chipped away at a complex, large-scale arms dealer case. He’d rather be at Mount Justice, his apartment in Bludhaven, anywhere but in this huge, lonely house that reminded him so much of his childhood and, more recently, of Jason.

He hadn’t been around a lot when Jason lived there, seeing as he and Bruce were practically treading on eggshells around one another. But that made every memory all the more prominent in his mind. Little things, like the creaky step leading to the library in the same hallway as his old room, were enough to make him feel like an anvil of guilt had been tossed onto his chest. That place, in particular, had been the spot where Jason had nervously teetered on his heels while waiting to ask Dick to train with him for the first time. Dick was annoyed at the time but begrudgingly agreed. He tried to avoid that spot now. The groan of the floorboard was a constant reminder of who wasn’t there to bug him about how to throw a harder punch.

Dick sighed, realizing he’d been staring at the same files for nearly twenty minutes under the cold fluorescent light of the desk lamp he’d moved from one of the studies to the living room. He turned to face his laptop and saw he must’ve been subconsciously tapping the spacebar the entire time he’d been staring, a large empty space now occupying the cell of the spreadsheet he was using to log evidence.

If it’d been sixteen hours of not sleeping, he’d brew a coffee and suck it up, but this was over double that, and he knew he wasn’t going to be able to get any work done if he was sleep-deprived enough to be hallucinating.

Closing the laptop without bothering to save his lengthy space on the page, Dick slumped against the couch, knocking the thread throw blanket off the back. Too tired to care, he flopped onto his side and closed his eyes.

~~~ 

_Dick was running. He didn’t know why, but dreams tended to make you do things you couldn’t explain. He forced his head over his shoulder and saw nobody there. He wasn’t being chased… so where was he going?_

_Everything felt murky, like a thick fog settling over a swamp, and his mind raced alongside his feet, trying to make sense of what was happening. Suddenly, he froze. He’d approached a heavy metal door, unaccompanied by anything else. Without hesitation, he pounded on it, bangs resounding through the seemingly empty space._

_Then, almost as if it were a reply to the bangs, a voice screamed back._

_“Nightwing, help! Please…”_

_Panic surged through him. He knew that voice. Hell would freeze over before he stopped trying to open this door. He wouldn’t let it happen again. Dick kicked and pounded at the door, but it didn’t budge. After what felt like an eternity, he reeled back. There wasn’t even a dent. Despite that, the screams continue to erupt from it, seeming to grow louder and louder with each failed attempt._

_“Please, I’m scared… you know what’s going to happen. Nightwing!”_

_Dick slammed into the door with his shoulder, hammered it with his fists, cried out for someone to open it, but the door stayed shut. The pleas kept coming._

_Eventually, they devolved into unintelligible cries of pain and agony, piercing the air like a knife._

_“Dick!”_

_~~~_

“Dick?”

He was pulled back into reality by a timid but urgent voice calling his name. Dick pried open his eyes, being met by the harsh light of the sun that was currently beaming through the grand windows of Wayne manor. Dick felt a hand prod his shoulder and he looked up to see Tim standing awkwardly in front of him, a cup of coffee in hand.

“Oh, Tim… what time is it?” Dick asked lamely as he sat up, wincing at a pinch in his neck. That’s what he got for sleeping on the couch instead of making the effort to go back to his room. He didn’t want to go down that hallway, though. Not yet.

“Like, three in the afternoon. I just got home from school. My parents aren’t home again so I came straight here to help you and Bruce work on that arms dealer case,” Tim said. “Coffee?”

“Yeah, thanks. Bruce is out on Wayne Enterprises business this weekend. He's hoping to get more info for us,” Dick replied, taking the creme-colored mug in his hands. It’s faded lettering read: ‘Rich Motherf*cker’ on it, asterisk and everything. A joke gift he’d bought Bruce for Christmas several years ago. Alfred didn’t approve of the language, but Dick insisted it was censored, therefore appropriate. Personally, he’d thought it to be pathetically hilarious.

An awkward silence filled the room.

“So, you had a late-night, I’m assuming?” Tim said, interjecting and breaking it.

“Yeah. Just superhero stuff, I guess. The case.”

“I was looking over what you’ve guys got already, and I think that we might be able to trace this all the way to Central City.”

“Really? Everything surrounding the shipments has been in Gotham, with a handful of outliers in Bludhaven, but nothing from Central.”

“I was fidgeting around with this radio last night before I went to bed and I honed in on this weird chatter. Pinpointed the location was somewhere in Central. I’ve got a recording of it. It’s a little staticky but you can clearly hear this guy list off the same serial codes for the weapons the guys in Gotham have been moving.”

“Damn, that’s pretty impressive, Tim. Let’s go down to the Cave. I’m sure this asterous discovery of yours is gonna be the lead we needed.”

The two sat in the Cave and worked till nearly midnight, easily getting lost in the thrill of a reinvigorated mystery mixed with too many Red Bulls and talks about Tim’s upcoming class trip. Dick, realizing it was almost the next day, turned to Tim and said, “Hey, kid, it’s getting late. You want a ride home?”

“Umm… yeah, sure, I guess? I was thinking of just staying here, actually. We’ve got a long weekend for teacher institute day and my folks aren’t home. I was hoping we’d just be able to work on the case all weekend. It’s also nice to not have to live off pasta or ready meals,” Tim’s face fell into a slight frown.

Dick noticed this and smoothly replied, “I mean, if I had the option between Hot Pockets and Alfred’s cooking, there’s no competition there. Bruce won’t mind, I’m sure.”

Tim gave a small smile, which Dick returned. It felt good to do that again.

They settled on the leather couches in the living room, curling up with copious amounts of throw pillows. Dick waited for Tim’s breaths to even out before he allowed himself to drift off.

~~~

_He was running again._

_The door was back._

_The screams returned._

_“Please, Nightwing, help me it- AGGH!”_

_He wanted to go deaf. It was too much to listen to again. Dick repeated his cycle of kicks and jabs at the door, the same as the night before. This time, however, it dented, it groaned and faltered with each subsequent blow._

_A spark of hope and determination bloomed in his chest. A final, heaving kick swung the door open, revealing a lump in the darkness. Dick wanted to sprint over, help it, protect it, but he couldn’t. His arms and legs swung in slow motion as he yelled out to it._

_The lump stirred, and then a wave of sobs erupted from it. A tidal wave of words, of which Dick could only make out the occasional drop of his name or a plea for help. A plea he still couldn’t answer or quell._

_As the darkness around him seemed to dull, Dick was able to see the outline of a body. Twisted legs, a concave torso, and a dark mop of hair topping a bloodied head. Pooled around it was the lining of a bright yellow cape._

_Once again, Dick was helpless. The body whimpered and moaned as it cried out for help… for someone who couldn’t get there. He wanted to scream, to run, to fix it, but he couldn’t. All he could do was watch and listen._

_Eventually, the body stilled, the cries quieted. Dick had failed, again._

_“JASON!”_

_~~~_

Dick woke up in a cold sweat, tears making their way down his face as he felt his chest tighten with choked up emotion. He wiped them away and let out an exasperated sigh before glancing at Tim. At least he hadn’t woken him. He took a moment to just watch him sleep. Not in a creepy way, but in simple awe of the earnest innocence on display. The small trail of drool pooling into the crook of his elbow took the cake.

Not wanting to go back to that hell for tonight, Dick ventured back down to the Cave to drown himself in work. Tim found him there several hours later, dazedly typing away at the Batcomputer.

Tim played with his fingers, a nervous tick as he waited for Dick to acknowledge his presence. The moment didn’t come until Tim let out an unintentional yawn, which he quickly tried to stifle.

Dick whipped around to see Tim, both of them clad in frumpy sweats, hair messy and untamed.

“Yawning’s not illegal, you know,” Dick joked.

“Sorry I didn’t wanna interrupt your train of thought,” Tim admitted.

“Well, the train derailed itself anyways. You wanna get some breakfast? Give Alfred the morning off?”

“Sure.”

Several hours and two plates of brunch later, Dick and Tim found themselves taking a break from the case to spar in the Cave. No gadgets, no weapons, just hand-to-hand combat and wits. 

It was very apparent that Tim needed more training, leaving many weak spots open that Dick could’ve easily taken advantage of if he’d wanted to; he clearly didn’t want to. Dick knew confidence was a virtue Tim needed to work on, and pummeling the boy into the ground wasn’t exactly going to help build it.

That didn’t mean he was letting Tim win easily, though.

Tim thrust a fist towards Dick’s midriff, aiming to knock the wind out of him to gain an advantage over his much taller opponent. Dick, who’d committed maneuvers like this to memory, jerked to the side, pivoting out of the way of Tim’s attack and adding a showy back handspring into the mix, landing a few feet away.

“We get it, you’re an acrobat!” Tim said with a hint of snark but ended up chuckling.

“I like to hammer it home,” Dick replied, characteristically smirking as he morphed back into a fighting stance. He taunted Tim, giving a small hand gesture, “come at me, Little Wing.”

Dick didn’t even realize the nickname had come out of his mouth before he froze up, conflicted and unsure of himself. Tim, however, had already bounded across the empty space between the two, launching a kick at Dick’s torso. Unable to halt his momentum, Tim unceremoniously crashed into Dick’s stiff frame, both tumbling onto the cold floor.

Dick’s chest was pounding, but he wasn’t quite sure why (aside from the likely bruised ribs, courtesy of Tim’s foot). He knew he wanted to be close with Tim, to soak up the sweet youthful years that he’d squandered with Jason. Those few shared things, though, meant all the more to him now that he was gone. That nickname had been one of the handful of lighthearted, positive connections Dick still had with Jason, and he’d just given it to Tim. Did it mean any less now that it was shared? Was it a Freudian slip, revealing a deep-seated, yearning preference for Jason over Tim? Or was it his heart finally opening up, saying it was time to move on? 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I thought you were ready and I-” Tim was talking a mile a minute, sputtering out an unnecessary apology.

Dick held a hand up, cutting Tim off, “No problem, Timmers. That was a good hit. I think that maybe it’s time to call it a night though. You like spaghetti?”

“That’s not even a question. Of course.”

“Alfred makes the sauce just right. It’s an experience you must have, kiddo. Let’s go.”

Dick pulled himself and Tim up from the floor, leading him towards the elevator, hand on his shoulder from behind. He gave a caring squeeze as to convey his fraternity to the younger boy. 

Unbeknownst to Tim, after the Team’s first mission Jason and Dick had finished together, M’gann had made spaghetti for them all to celebrate.

~~~

_He was back in the dark room. The body of a fallen bird crumpled into a bloody heap at the center, illuminated ominously by some unseen light source. He’d failed again. Robin was dead._

_The screams, pants, and whimpers that had erupted from the body were no longer ringing through his ears._

_He wasn’t sure which one he preferred anymore._

_Night after night of nothing but blood-curdling cries and he’d wanted nothing more than to make it stop, but the silence… it was harrowing. The room felt empty in all the wrong ways._

_Dick couldn’t bring himself to move, this dream warping back into a sickening nightmare of a memory. The past year or so flashing through his mind around him. Screaming matches with Bruce ending in slammed doors and tears, being enraged at the new ward who’d seemingly replaced him in every sense of the word. Fleeting moments of happiness and connection with the boy… one mission, one warehouse, brutality, shattered glass and shrapnel, and a bloody body found without a soul._

_He could still feel the weight of the corpse as it laid limp in his arms, refusing to let it go, refusing to accept what had just happened. He could still remember taking off the mask that night, eyes bloodshot from crying staring back in the mirror to match the blood staining his hands that had seeped through his gloves. He could feel all the emotions coursing through his veins. Rage, hatred, sorrow, and heartache. He remembered punching the mirror, feeling the glass splintering between his calloused knuckles, his own blood mixing with Jason’s as the shards crashed to the tiled floor and more tears escaped his eyes._

_He remembered the weight of silence and emptiness in his apartment following the days after his death, coming and going past a funeral he couldn’t bring himself to attend._

_Dick’s hands hovered over the body in front of him as the flipbook of flashing memories ceased and he was once again alone with the red, yellow, and black mass of flesh and uniform in front of him. A hitching sob caught in his throat and he was unable to move._

_With the weighty, slow effort only a dream could make you feel, Dick shifted closer to the body, each footfall echoing through the empty surroundings. As he approached, he noticed subtle alterations in the corpse’s appearance._

_Red fabric running down lanky arms instead of black. Short, spiked black tufts over pale skin instead of a loose center part._

_Inches away from reaching out to hold his younger brother, Dick saw that the body was without a domino, lifeless orbs staring upwards. The eyes, however, were not the deep green of Jason Todd, but the bright and bold blue of Timothy Drake._

_Oh, God._

_It had finally dawned on him. This flightless Robin wasn’t Jason, he’d been dreaming about Tim. Tim dying the same brutal death Jason suffered. He’d let it happen again. He’d failed and yet another hopeful kid had perished being the Boy Wonder._

_A whole new wave of grief washed over him. All his words catching in his throat, coming out as nothing but a strangled cry of anguish as he took up another brother’s body in his arms._

_“I-I’m so sorry, Timmy. I w-would’ve stopped it, I-I… I tried… I just, I c-couldn’t. I’m sorry,” he croaked out, tears cascading down his cheeks._

_—-_

Dick was pulled out of his swirling, destructive nightmare by a splash of icy water. Bleary eyes snapping open as his entire body was shocked awake, left trembling with tears still falling freely from his eyes. The room flared to life with the offending bright glow of a priceless table lamp.

“I-I didn’t know what to do! I tried to wake you up and you were screaming a-and I-” Tim stammered, plastic cup in hand, as he hovered anxiously near the older teen.

Dick, drenched from sweat, tears, and ice water, simply reached out and pulled the boy into his shaky, yet firm grip. 

Tim had not been expecting a hug. It took him a few moments but eventually the shock wore off and he quickly reciprocated the action. Dick took this as an open invitation to full-on smother the boy, pulling him into an awkward heap onto his lap. They sat there and simply let time flow by, neither really sure where to go next after the whole debacle.Tim decided to break the silence.

“I’m assuming it was a nightmare?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

Dick didn’t respond, opting for a small nod as he pulled Tim fully into the couch. He knew the question that would be soon to follow, one Bruce always asked him when he was a child after the constant night terrors of his parents’ deaths.

“Do you want to talk ab-”

“Tim, I want to say something. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, I mean it. Kiddo, I love you. You’re my Robin, now, and I can’t bear the thought of anything bad happening to you. Tim…” Dick drew in a shaky breath, “I’m so scared. I want to keep you safe, protect you, but I know I’m not always gonna be around to do that. Just, when I can… let me be there for you, please?”

“Umm, yeah. Of course, Dick, anything for you.”

“No, Timmy, I wanna do this for you.”

Dick wasn’t sure if he knew the falseness of those words. A part of him felt like he _was_ doing this for Tim, to give him that layer of loyal safety Jason never had, to make sure that never happened again. The other part of him knew that, deep down, he wanted this pact for his own sanity, to quell the seemingly never-ending anxiety that bubbled in his chest after nightly patrol. 

“I just… I don’t want…”

“What happened to Jason to happen to me? Dick, that’s not gon-”

“Tim, I couldn’t save you! It was just like him all over again…”

“I’m not Jason, Dick! It was a dream!” Tim shouted, his frustration growing apparent.

Dick was taken aback, the emotional outburst catching him off guard. Tim was right though. He wasn’t Jason. He wasn’t dead, they were here, alive, together, and that was enough.

Despite the tension still hanging over them, Dick pulled Tim closer to his chest, surprisingly met with no resistance. Dick rested his chin on top of Tim’s hair, letting out a sigh.

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t… I didn’t want it to come off that way. You’re not a Jason replacement. You _are_ a part of the Team now though, and I’m always gonna want to keep you safe. You’re my Little Wing,” the nickname came easily this time, without hesitation or the subsequent guilt.

Tim let out a small chuckle, “I didn’t want to say it earlier, but that nickname is so cringy.”

 _Jason thought so too,_ Dick thought silently to himself. 

“Too bad, Timmy, you’re kinda stuck with me, and your title has been chosen.” Dick paused, fully realizing it was some ungodly hour of night. “Umm, well, I don’t know about you, but I’m not really tired anymore.”

“Me either.”

“Wanna watch a movie?”

“Only if it involves bullshit sci-fi physics I can criticize.”

“Star Wars it is, then!”

Pulling up the film on his laptop, Dick readjusted so Tim could see without breaking their precarious stance. A vulnerable part of him still wanted to be physically comforted, and he felt like he could afford to have a rare domestic moment with Tim, just existing, watching a movie, content and safe in each others’ embrace. 

He was fully aware Tim probably thought they were both too old to be cuddling like this, but just like Jason’s lifeless body after that fateful night, he couldn’t bring himself to let go.


End file.
